The Druid Grove

A place for exploration and discussion of all forms of divination, such as Ogham, Tarot, Runes and dowsing.

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3 day training this weekend with someone who helped recreate one modern version of this practice with Diana Paxton. I have attended several of her oracular rituals before and found them to be extremely powerful. I'm really looking forward to it, especially because I already know some of the other people who will be attending and feel comfortable working with them, which is good, because this stuff gets very deep. I'll report back after the training.

While I read this, you'll be in the middle of it. Looking forward to your experiences!

Three sounds one should treasure:
the whisper of the wind through the leaves
the songs of one's heart
the callings of the universe Golden Harps are like cookies, you can never have just oneSacred spaces and places

It was very interesting and quite intense. The workshop was held at a Hof run by Kindred in Columbia, Md. Most of the people there had experience with the particular ritual forms used. We did a lot of review on basic journeying tools, and then focused in particular tools used in this tradition, which involves journeying to various places in Midgard. We visited Hella's realm and the Norn, with different groups of people sitting in the High chair for the ritual to Hella's realm, and a different set of people sitting in the chairs of the Norn. There was a lot of supervision and monitoring by the more experienced practitioner. The actual "seeing" portion drops you into a very deep trance state. I was able to do the Norn ritual on the last day, and was a participant/observer/grounder at the other rituals. Some of the people came out of the high seat on the Hella's realm ritual feeling like they were plugged into a 220 volt outlet. Overall, it took me about 2 days for things to start to slow down in my head.

I was at somewhat of a disadvantage because my Norse lore is not strong, and as we all know, there is a significant use of the runes in this kind of work. I am weakest on the runes. I have read a number of books on the runes but am nowhere near being able to recognize more than a few. I picked up a copy of Paxton's rune book, which is really a one year course, and will start working with that and perhaps even see if I can start a local rune study group to meey 1 or 2x a month.

It raised some interesting issues for me regarding the degree of respect and adoption that is proper when working in another tradition. There was also one very interesting part where one of the Norn - Skuld - instructed the leader to call me by a certain name. That one is still bouncing in a very lively manner. I found it challenging and interesting, and hope to continue training in this tradition. I will get a chance to see Diana Paxton perform the high chair ritual next month, as well as go to her presentations at the Sacred Space conference outside Washington DC.

My lore is still very weak at this point, and I can't cite any authority, but based upon what I have read so far but my understanding is that there were other references the ritual and that men, probably a minority, were accepted as practitioners. The culture changed, and as you say, it was viewed as receptive or women's magic. Thanks for the links!

Ahh well yes, the roots could well be from Loki (aka in my practice as Loca) borrowing Freyja's cloak to shapeshift into a hawk. He also shape changes into a mare, gets pregnant and brings forth Odin's stallion Sleipnir.

Additionally, Adam of Bremen accuses the priests of Frey as dressing up like women (which is interesting as it comes from a Catholic priest!) and, I think, there is archaeological evidence for men being buried with feminine grave goods.

Most dear is fire to the sons of men,
most sweet the sight of the sun;
good is health if one can but keep it,
and to live a life without shame. (Havamal 68)http://gewessiman.blogspot.co.uk

I had the privilege of being a member of the Seidr ritual team led by Diana Paxon and Laurel Mendes at the Sacred Space conference last weekend. http://www.sacredspacefoundation.org/ Another Obodie and I who have studied with Laurel got to be warders. It was really a treat for me to meet Diana and work with her. An extraordinary woman.

It was really interesting being a warder, because you can't go full trance into the ritual, but you have to be tranced enough to pick up on whether the people who are fully tranced are too deep or are having issues. We also had to spend quite a bit of time clearing the ritual space - there were some nasty energy spots in the room. It was a very long night for me - we started the pre-rit stuff at 7:30, rit was 9:30-11:45, finished the debrief at 12:30 am. Many of the participants went to Denny's to consume large quantities of pancakes and sausage afterwards, but I was all in by then.

My wife and I also got to have dinner with Diana and Laurel and learned a lot about the origins of Diana's book on the runes and the runic initiation ceremony they had developed. Really a wonderful opportunity to watch and learn!

I have been continuing with this and had my first opportunity to sit as a seer at the Winter Nights gathering held by a local kindred. There were about 40 people in attendance. As the newbie seer I got to respond to four questions, and more experienced folk covered the rest. Very interesting, I didn't know what to expect, but I was apparently "approved" by the Norse deities involved, since I was able to respond to several questions by relating information provided to me by entities during the ritual. I am continuing with my rune studies and hope to be able to complete the formal runic initiation ceremony held by a local kindred some time next year. I did a full day training on the runes in June 2014 with my principal teacher which ended with a 4 hour guided meditation which was really powerful.

I am looking into this as well. I think the Nordic traditions might not be very different than the Celtic ones in some regions. If I read the different describtions on what bards and ovates did, and what is written on the nordic rituals, there is some similarity.